Who's on first after White House shuffle?

WASHINGTON -- WHEN fly balls are landing on outfielders' heads and runners are sliding into the same base and boo birds are jeering, there's an instant solution:

Change the manager.

That's the essence of what happened to Bill's Bumblers in the White House shakeup that replaced Mack "The Nice" McLarty with Leon "Neon" Panetta as chief of staff.

The Bumblers were playing lackluster .500 ball and -- before I mercifully give up the baseball analogies -- were in lousy shape for the pennant drive.

In truth, Mack the Nice was a decent, amiable Arkansas sidekick totally miscast as manager of the Clinton White House.

"He's my closest friend," said Bill Clinton on Monday as he demoted Mr. McLarty sideways to the post of presidential counselor.

Because a guy's been your pal since kindergarten in Hope, Ark., doesn't mean he can run a White House. The job requires the savagery of Darth Vader and savvy of Machiavelli. Instead, Mr. McLarty had the pleasant vacuity of a wedding usher.

Worse, Mr. McLarty came to town with a shakier knowledge of Washington than an immigrant cab driver.

Not to worry -- Mr. Clinton, with his insatiable appetite for wonkish detail, would be his own chief.

As the first 19 months of the Clinton regime proved, that was a semi-disastrous idea.

"This place is dysfunctional," moaned one staffer this spring, complaining that the Clinton team specialized in Endless Meetings That Never Reached a Decision.

The anarchy, of course, was bred in Mr. Clinton's personal style. He thrives on give-and-take gab, free-wheeling chaos, seat-of-the-pants intuition. He prefers to play the presidency like a blues saxophone, winging it without sheet music.

Long before Bob Woodward's book, "The Agenda," revealed free-lancing bedlam inside the White House, someone was frustrated with the Chinese fire drill.

That someone was Hillary Clinton, a First Woman with a low tolerance for disorder. Even if Mack the Nice was Bill's best pal, he had to go.

"We began talking about it before the D-Day trip. The president didn't feel he was getting the kind of counsel and judgment he needed on a day-to-day basis," said Mr. McLarty, who suggested Mr. Panetta take over his job. "We made it final at Camp David last weekend."

After all, presidents in a jam ritually fire the manager. Richard Nixon brought in Al Haig during Watergate. Ronald Reagan in Iran-Contra recruited Howard Baker's expertise. George Bush returned Jim Baker to the chief's job to "save" his re-election.

The probable answer is yes, Mr. Clinton's shifts will help the Bumblers at least marginally: Leon Panetta has talents missing in Bill's buddy, Mr. McLarty.

After 16 years on Capitol Hill, Mr. Panetta knows the players, understands House members' two-year cycle of insecurity, and can play budget numbers like a Wurlitzer.

Beneath his Italian-American rosiness, Mr. Panetta can be brutally candid. A year ago he moaned so gloomily about the economy, Mr. Clinton was shocked. Some suspected Mr. Panetta, shades of David Stockman, might be fired.